Most travel guides simply call it the “shovel museum,” but it’s really the Stonehill Industrial History Center. Much more than shovels, curator Greg Galer tells us the collection reveals interesting facts about what we were building and how we built it over the past 200 years.
Located on the campus of Stonehill College in Easton Massachusetts, the collection does boast 755 shovels from the Ames manufacturing companies. From the FAQ:
By the 1870s Ames was the largest shovel manufacturer in the world, making three-fifths of the world’s shovels, although even as early as the 1830s and 1840s they struggled to meet the demand for their highly prized products. Ames shovels were the tool of choice in both the California and Australian gold rushes as well as in most major American building projects including the Erie and Panama Canals and most American railroad construction. Ames shovels literally built America.
Above is the Ames Centennial display of 19 silver-plated shovels as prepared for the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. Amusingly, they’re displayed in the original display case. Inside the vault with the rest of the collection, Galer proudly points out not only the typical shovels we’re familiar with, but shovels designed for working coffee beans, 10-foot-long shovels used to dig telegraph pole holes, and tiny trenching shovels used by US troops in WWI and WWII.
But shovels are just a piece of the collection. Deeper in the vault are the business records, blueprints, patents and other materials that offer primary source documentation of America’s early growth into an industrial superpower.
greg galer, industrial archaeology, museum, oliver ames, shovel, shovel museum, shovels, stonehill college, stonehill industrial history center
Posted May 14, 2006 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Technology, Travel. Tags: greg galer, industrial archaeology, museum, oliver ames, shovel, shovel museum, shovels, stonehill college, stonehill industrial history center.
2 Comments
Comments RSS
TrackBack Identifier URI
Leave a comment
User contributed tags for this post:
shovel museum (324) - history of the shovel (205) - shovel history (174) - history of shovels (164) - ames shovel museum (90) - history of shovel (70) - ames shovel (69) - shovels (37) - ames shovels (33) - The history of the shovel (30) - stonehill industrial history center (30) - history shovel (29) - ames shovel history (27) - WWII shovel (25) - SHOVELS HISTORY (23) - wpa shovel (22) - stonehill shovel museum (21) - largest shovel (17) - stonehill history shovel (17) - railroad shovels (16) - shovel (16) - the history of shovels (15) - Biggest Shovel (14) - WW2 SHOVELS (14) - WWII shovels (13) - Oliver Ames shovel (13) - shovel museum easton (12) - stonehill industrial museum (11) - railroad shovel (11) - ww1 shovel (10) - shovel manufacturers (10) - 10 foot long shovel (10) - shovel museum massachusetts (10) - shovel museum ma (9) - Stonehill Industrial Center (9) - early american shovels (9) - shovel display case (8) - The history of shovel (8) - stonehill museum (8) - history shovels (7) - the shovel museum (7) - all (7) - Telegraph Shovel (7) - history of a shovel (7) - ames shovels history (7) - easton massachusetts shovel museum (6) - shovel photos (6) - shovel museums (6) - mss (6) - Easton, Massachusetts - Shovel Museum Stonehill College (6) - wwI shovel (6) - american shovel manufacturer (6) - ww2 shovel (6) - history of aka (5) - industrial museum (5) - INDUSTRIAL SHOVELS (5) - history of shovels in us (5) - historic shovel (5) - stonehill (5) - shovel collection (5) - wwi shovels (5) - ames shovel collection (5) - 2 shovel (5) - easton shovel museum (4) - stonehill college shovel ames industrial (4) - cache 1kT9y2ikK7cJ maisonbisson com blog post 11302 ame (4) - museum of shovels (4) - easton ma shovel museum (4) - Stonehill Brewery (4) - american shovel manufacturers (4) - steam shovel museum (4) - history of american shovels (4) - stonehill industrial (4) - ames shovel stonehill (4) - Spade (Shovel) History (4) - stonehill industrial history (4) - stonehill college museum (4) - Steam Shovel blueprints (4) - shovel history WWII (4) - History on the Shovels (4) - F (4) - shovel museum in stonehill college (4) - shovel museum Stonehill (4) - SHOVEL MANUFACTURING USA (4) - ames shovel company museum (4) - WWII AMES Shovel (4) - pole shovels (4) - Oliver Ames history (4) - greg galer (4) - sexs history (4) - shovel manufacturer (4) - Stone Hill Museum (3) - 8 foot shovel (3) - Ames shovel display (3) - stonehill college map (3) - ames stonehill college ma (3) - telegraph shovels (3) - shovel manufacturer usa (3) - ames shovel company (3) - www sex museums world (3) - industrial history museums (3) - trenching shovels (3) - stonehill and shovel (3) - TELEGRAPH POLE SHOVEL (3) - SHOVELS FROM HOLES (3) - museum shovel (3) - ames shovel company history (3) - shovel museum stonehill college (3) - Ames Museum shovel (3) - 3 shovel (3) - american shovel (3) - Stonehill College Easton MA Shovel Museum (3) - stonehill college shovel museum (3) - stonehill industrial history centre (3) - historic spade German Spade used in WWI (3) - clam shovels (3) - shovel facts (3) - history shovel easton (3) - Oliver Ames Shovel museum (3) - history of ames shovels (3) - german wwII shovel (3) - Interesting facts about Stonehill College (3) - deep hole shovel (3) - ames telegraph shovel (3) - shovel history of (3) - us ames shovel (3) - Stonehill shovels (3) - american shovel museum (3) - shovel museum easton ma (3) - industrial history museum (2) - history stonehill easton ma (2) - los angel lacker history (2) - WW2 american shovel (2) - ames shovels trenching (2) - picture of ww1 german shovel (2) - shovel museum, easton ma (2) - museum of industrial history (2) - www.sex galer,com (2) - shovel museum in Massachusetts (2) - 12 foot shovel (2) - stonehill interesting facts (2) - shovel to dig 7 to 8 feet long (2) - what was a water bottleused for in ww1 (2) - weird shovels (2) - ames 3 shovel (2) - pole hole shovels (2) - industrial museum united states (2) - ames shovel faq (2) - worlds biggest shovel (2) - ames shovel website (2) -
Who manufactures razor clam shovels?
I found two long shovels. One is 10 feet long a spade.
The other is 8 feet long and is dished on the bottom to get the
loose dirt out of the deep hole. The markings on them are
SEPT 55 No. 2 Is this 1855 or 1955 and is there a market
for them. I will probablly put them on Ebay.